


thoughts meander

by barebones



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode: s14e01 Stranger in a Strange Land, M/M, Mutual Pining, in which i slap on some band-aids and call it a day, there's some sad smooching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 22:32:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16313888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barebones/pseuds/barebones
Summary: Oh, so theyarejoined at the… everything; Kipling had been right in that regard. The constant nag ofwantingthat hasn’t left Castiel since Michael stole Dean is compounded of his and Dean’s both—of theirs together.(14.01 “Stranger in a Strange Land” coda)





	thoughts meander

Kipling was another dead end, getting _dead_ himself, and while Castiel is literal colors—wavelengths of them, like frayed cords of live wires fit to spark—surprised isn’t one of them. He’d expected them, the demons lying in wait, even if their true faces might’ve been too buried inside their meatsuits for the mechanisms of his fritzing vision to excavate them. He’d predicted the inevitable, ensuing disappointment, too, even though he’d thought this lead had had potential. In the fourteen some-odd hours Castiel spent waiting for Sam to arrive in Detroit, Kipling never gave up anything substantial, only regaled Castiel with the tales—prompted by that stranger’s question of what Kipling wanted—of his _destroying, drinking and defiling_ days.

That’s never been asked of Castiel, what he’s desired—but if it ever were, he ventures that the D-word foremost in his own vocabulary would be the answer. For Dean to be safe and alive, clean of Michael, is a yearning that occupies the intercostal spaces of Castiel’s ribs, not new but much more intense, his each breath laden with it.

He spends too long rinsing from his face the evidence of an embarrassing day, and when he’s done, dampness clinging yet to his lashes, his bangs, he begins to strip away his bloodstained clothing. He undoes his tie before pulling it through his collar, and along with his shoes, slacks and shirt, it finds its home on his bedroom floor, everything replaced by worn Wal-Mart sweats and a plain t-shirt. His trench coat has long since been draped over the back of his desk chair.

Heaven’s intermittent power has Castiel feeling more human than angel anymore, his spine protesting the foamless mattress, his split eyebrow and cheekbone stinging from the cheap soap he used to wash them. Despite the aches, sleep takes him, and he sees behind his eyelids an electric current that crackles for his attention. It doesn’t belong to him, this honeycrisp of an aura pleading for the bundles of synapses that represent Castiel: his ancient grace, his fledgling soul. This longing, though, _is_ reminiscent of that which his chest houses. Familiar and warm and fluttering, it feels like—

It feels like Dean.

Oh, so they _are_ joined at the… everything; Kipling had been right in that regard. The constant nag of _wanting_ that hasn’t left Castiel since Michael stole Dean is compounded of his and Dean’s both—of theirs together.

Angels don’t dream, but in sleep Castiel chases Dean’s pining, these thrumming threads that weave Dean to Castiel— _I’m alive, come find me_ —and knit into Castiel’s consciousness a scene of lazy morning kisses, of an ocean, invisible past the four walls of their cabana bedroom, noisily cresting and crashing onto some nearby shore. In the not-dream, he’s an omnipresent thing, as incorporeal and boundless as he is when circling a vessel, and below him is his facsimile, sharing this intimacy with Dean.

“ _Dean_ ,” the real Castiel gasps from above, unbidden, and suddenly he isn’t coasting the salty air anymore: He’s lying beside the sleep-mussed Dean beneath white cotton sheets, their bare legs entangled, the pad of his thumb resting on the pulse point behind Dean’s jaw.

Their noses scant an inch apart, Dean blinks at Castiel, his breath hitching: startled. He utters, “Cas?” and then, cautious, “S'that… really you?”

“It’s me,” Castiel answers, his hand cupping more insistently the side of Dean’s face, his thumb skittering down Dean's freckled cheek. His fingertips buzz at the revelation of Dean’s soul beneath them. “I’m here.”

Eyes shining, Dean chokes on his relief, the sound he makes wet and shaky. “Shit.” His face splits in giddy disbelief. “ _How_ , man? I mean, I know this—I know this isn’t…” Something close to shame, then, dims his excitement. He licks his lips. “I get that this ain’t actually happening.”

Castiel swallows. “It isn’t,” he whispers, “but it doesn’t make it any less real.”

Their foreheads meet, then, and Castiel sees Dean’s sad smile before he feels it. His ears ring with the pure energy singing its praise and contentment as they kiss. It lasts only a short moment before the dilemma at hand takes precedence over their pleasure.

Castiel manages to say, his eyes yet closed, “I need to know, Dean, I need you to—to tell me where you are.” He feels the palm of Dean’s heavy hand travel a possessive path up his hip and along his ribcage that’s been reprieved, for once, of their joint aching. “Tell me everything you can.”

Dean grunts, his breath ghosting over Castiel’s lips, the nerve endings of which remain alight. “He’s—” he begins but doesn’t get to finish.

Something pops once, twice, thrice—light bulbs from the fan fixture above, their glass raining down on the bed—and then the scene begins to quake and dissolve, Dean’s horror-stricken expression the last of it that Castiel witnesses before he’s sent hurling back to where he originated, jolting awake in the bunker.

A quick but thorough combing of his mind doesn’t illuminate to him Dean’s clamoring soul, but the minor inconvenience of the black eye, of the scrapes fresh from his skirmish with the demons, corroborates that he has, in fact, returned to his own side of things. Their connection has short-circuited, no doubt by Michael after having sensed the interference. Who knows to where inside Dean’s own head Michael has banished him, and Castiel, no stranger to the torment imposed by an archangel, feels his stomach curdle at the grim possibilities.

* * *

It takes a while, like a reboot of the system, but as Castiel progresses through the following day, working alongside Sam and the other hunters who’ve taken refuge amongst the dusty lore books, Dean’s presence returns to him, tugging on the sleeve of his awareness. And again Castiel welcomes it into his chest like a second heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> season 14 is here!! this hellatus i made a promise to myself to write coda as often as possible. here's hoping i keep it.


End file.
